“Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow-men by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“These [the armed forces] are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, every where.... Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage, and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature, opposition to it in his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism, and when brought into collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“Although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“The way for a young man to rise, is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that any body wishes to hinder him.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“Resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer”
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Abraham Lincoln
“I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.
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Abraham Lincoln
“Such will be a great lesson of peace: teaching men that what they cannot take by and election, neither can they take by war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war.”
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Abraham Lincoln